The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1887-03-11
AN AWFUL PLUNGE.


A Train on the Iron Mountain Road Goes
Through a TrestIa Into Raging Tor
rent-Two Lives Lost and Many Persons
Wounded Miraculous Escapes-A Mis-
souri, Farmers Heroism-Valuable Mail
Matter Swept Away.
ST. LOUIS, March A trestle over
Joachim creek, on the Iron Mountain road,
at Victoria, thirty miles south of here. gave
way under the Texas express, which left
here Saturday night. The train consisted
of baggage, express and mail cars, a
smoker, two passenger coaches aud
four sleepers, carrying about one hun
dred and thirty passengers. The engine
and the express, baggage and mail cars and
the smoker were precipitated into raging
torrent A full list of the casualties can
not now be obtained, but, so far as known,
only two lives were lost. Henry Byron, of
Jamestown, n. Y, was found drowned in
the smoker, and Samuel Meyers, brake
man residing in st. Louis, is missing and is
thought to have been drowned. The in
jured number about twenty.
A heavy rain had fallen all day and the
creek was much swollen. AS he ap-
preached the trestle Engineer Kelly OBJ
served that the track was entirely straight
and level, showing nothing wrong, and he
went on without the slightest fear or hest.
tation, but when his engine reached
about the middle of the trestle he
felt the whole structure sinking beneath
him. In an instant he opened the valve
operating the air brakes full width and
brought the train to so quick stop that
the front end of one of the cars was crushed
in by the sudden shock. This saved the
coaches, but the mail, express and smol1-
ing cars went into the raging torrent be-
low, carrying with them all the men on
board.
Engineer Kelly and Fireman Hach went
down with the engine ana were submerged
in the flood. Kelly, in his struggle to free
himself, found that one of his feet was
held fas t, but at the same instant and just
as he realized that he must drown the en-
CINE turned over, his foot was released,
and he came to the surface. Selling
perately and was swept down the
torrent and was lodged against a
tree $50 yards below. With scarcely
legs and arms around limb of the tree,
became unconscious, and was not restored
until two or three hours after he had been
His face and head were severely cut, two
of his toes cut from one of his feet, and he
was badly bruised in various parts of the
body. He will recover.
Fireman Hach was carried about five
hundred yards downstream, lodged in a
mass of brush or drift, and was rescued
soon after the flood subsidized. He is good
deal bruised but not seriously hurt. The
oh
some twenty persons, was swept down
about three hundred feet below the trestle.
All of its occupants, except Henry Byron, of
jamestown, N. Y, who was found in it
drowned, succeeded in getting outside of
the car and clrng to its top until they were
rescued.
The postal car was swept away some dis
lance, and, as the water rushed through it
from, end to end, the mail was literally
washed out and is now scattered over
miles of territory or imbedded in
the mud of the creek. 1t is regarded as
an almost total loss, the whole of it
being completely soaked and addresses
of the letters obliterated. The postal clerks
Mccullough, Shaffer and Ryan-were bad
ly bruised and almost drowned, and, being
stripped for work, they lost all their
ClOIu0S, GUGlE WATCHES anu ABOUT S>0U III
money, which were carried away by the
flood.
The mail is said to have been the largest
ever sent over the road, and losses will fall
heavily on this city, where about three
quarters of the matter originated. The
registered matter was also very heavy and
valuable, consisting largely of remittances
from firms here to their correspondents in
Texas. An express package without ad
dress or any thing on it by which it can be
identified, containing $4,000, was foun
yesterday, and it is not uni kelly that others
will be discovered in the bed of the creeL
or in the woods.
A farmer named Andrew White o.
Bailey's Station did heroic rk in saving
passengers. He swan several times to
the smoker and each time returned with
one of the unfortunates who were clinging
to the roof of the car. Several of the
passengers in the sleepers also aided ma
terially in the work and all of the train
crew labored like Trojans in rescuing those